Former Madera Coyote wrestler Luis Contreras recently visited the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Then he took the L-train to watch a Chicago Cubs game in one of baseball’s most venerable ballparks at Wrigley Field.

He can mark these off his bucket list. He probably never thought of a bucket list in 2007 when he was a freshman wrestler for the Coyotes — he couldn’t dream that far ahead then.

He just wanted to wrestle. Like a startling number of Madera athletes, his vision could not reach beyond the confines of the city.

He didn’t have the map on how to create expectations. During high school, he lived with his parents and two siblings in a small, cramped apartment. No one in his family had graduated from high school. Just accomplishing that was uncharted territory...